Pompeii Didn’t Begin with the Romans: The Lost Story of the Oscans, Its First Inhabitants

Ruins of Pompeii. Credit: Tanya Dedyukhina / CC BY 3.0

Pompeii is astir celebrated contiguous for being utterly destroyed successful a volcanic eruption successful 79 AD. However, it had a agelong past earlier that, and lone portion of it involved the Romans. In fact, for astir of its history, Pompeii was not a Roman city. What bash we cognize astir the past of Pompeii, including its connection and its culture, anterior to the clip of the Romans?

Pompeii arsenic an Oscan city

The archetypal happening to recognize astir Pompeii earlier the Romans is that it was fundamentally an Oscan city. While astatine slightest 2 different groups—the Etruscans and the Greeks—controlled it astatine assorted points successful its pre-Roman history, the Osci were the ones who primitively founded the colony and, for the astir part, made up its population.

The Osci were an Italic people, though they were not Latins. They, on with respective different groups specified arsenic the Samnites, spoke an Oscan language. These communities lived passim the mountainous regions of cardinal and confederate Italy. The Oscan connection household was intimately related to respective different languages spoken successful Ancient Italy, including Latin, adjacent if it wasn’t precisely the same.

Although Oscan was chiseled from Latin, its speakers sometimes utilized a mentation of the Romans’ Latin alphabet—something that mightiness consciousness acquainted to modern readers. This is akin to the mode assorted languages nowadays stock the aforesaid penning system. They besides occasionally utilized the Etruscan script. In addition, the Greek alphabet appears successful surviving inscriptions, particularly successful confederate Italy, wherever Oscan speakers lived person to the Greek cities of Magna Graecia and were much straight influenced by Greek culture.

Over time, however, the enlargement of Rome led to the diminution and eventual disappearance of the Oscan languages, which were replaced by Latin. This broader linguistic displacement is precisely what we spot reflected successful the past of Pompeii.

Frescoed nutrient antagonistic of the Regio V thermopolium successful Pompeii. Credit: Parco Archeologico di Pompei

The root and aboriginal past of Pompeii anterior to the Romans

The origins of Pompeii agelong backmost to astir the ninth oregon eighth period BC. There are nary modern records of its founding, nor bash we cognize of immoderate legends astir however it began. What historians person reconstructed done archaeology suggests that it was founded by the Osci from Campania—the southwestern Italian portion wherever Pompeii is situated.

Initially, these Oscan speakers acceptable up a clump of 5 tiny villages located adjacent each other. By the sixth period BC, these villages merged into a single, unified settlement. A akin process happened successful Greece with the metropolis of Sparta, which primitively consisted of 4 abstracted villages earlier coming together.

Even earlier Pompeii’s villages merged, Greek influences were already shaping the area. It seems that the Greeks of Magna Grecia came to predominate the region, apt not done subject conquest but by taste and economical influence, astir 700 BC—shortly aft the city’s archetypal establishment.

Following this, successful the seventh period BC, the Etruscans expanded southbound into Campania. Like the Greeks earlier them, they look to person taken power of Pompeii and the surrounding territory without large warfare against its inhabitants. The Etruscans maintained dominance implicit Pompeii until the archetypal fractional of the sixth period BC. Their powerfulness waned arsenic wars began to dismantle the Etruscan civilization, opening the doorway for a caller ruling force: the Samnites.

What was Oscan Pompeii like?

In a linguistic sense, it was astir arsenic if Pompeii had travel afloat circle. The Samnites, who became the ascendant powerfulness successful the metropolis earlier the Romans arrived, spoke Oscan—just similar the Osci who had primitively founded Pompeii.

The Samnites look to person called themselves the Safineis. This was apt the sanction that astatine slightest immoderate of Pompeii’s pre-Roman inhabitants utilized for themselves. Sadly, we don’t cognize what the archetypal Osci settlers called their ain people.

What we bash cognize is that aboriginal Pompeii was heavy influenced by Greek civilization successful aggregate ways. Archaeology reveals this from the precise earliest layers of the site. For example, determination was a Doric-style temple dating to astir 700 BC, alongside grounds of a cult devoted to Apollo, showing however Greek spiritual practices had taken root. During the play of Etruscan dominance, unsurprisingly, traces of Etruscan power look arsenic well. Archaeologists person uncovered an Etruscan necropolis dating to the sixth period BC, and the Oscan connection was sometimes written utilizing the Etruscan script.

Interestingly, the Greek alphabet did not vanish aft the Greeks mislaid power of Pompeii successful the aboriginal 5th period BC. In fact, its usage whitethorn person adjacent accrued implicit time, apt reflecting increasing commercialized connections with the almighty cities of Magna Grecia. From its founding done the Roman conquest, Pompeii’s Oscan inhabitants intelligibly had nary occupation adopting elements from different cultures—like the Greek alphabet—and weaving them seamlessly into their regular lives.